Little One
by tillymia2
Summary: Alice Winchester: The Life and Times, a short story.


One of Alice's favourite memories was when Dean first called her 'Little One'. Even after all these years, she was surprised that she could still remember it.

Alice had been four, Sam had just turned eight and Dean was proudly holding the title of the twelve year old big brother. John, who knew where John had been, probably at some bar or perhaps some lady's house. For certain, he definitely was not with his children.

It was cold, the heater was broken in the old motel room and Dean was peering over Sam's shoulder as he finished up with his maths homework. There had been two cases within the area and John had enrolled his kids in school to keep them out the way during the day. Alice struggled, being too young for school, but never seemed to fit into the Kindergardens she was left in.

It was a stormy night, rain poured and thunder rumbled across the sky, but the Winchesters were not afraid, even young Alice knew there was worse things out there than thunder and lightning. The cold and the hunger being some of them.

Alice shivered under the thin cotton blankets, her tummy grumbled as she had only eaten the meal provided at kindergarden today. Dean had stretched the money as far as he could, but John hadn't been back to the motel in three days, feeding three mouths was a difficult task. He'd stolen some bread for his and Sammy's lunch, but without money, there wasn't much else he could do.

"Dean?" Alice had murmured, looking towards her big, brave brother expectantly.

"What is it, sweetheart?" Dean left Sam's shoulder and perched on the edge of the cot Alice was sleeping in.

"I'm hungry, Dean." Alice frowned as her tummy let out another groan, "When can we have dinner?"

"I'm sorry kiddo, we are going to have to wait a while, okay?" Dean shuffled over until he could swing his legs up onto the bed and Alice climbed onto his lap, her head resting in the crook of his neck and her little fingers clasping to the material of Dean's T-Shirt.

"Okay," she muttered, not complaining anymore. For a four year old, she had quite an understanding of what was going on. She knew Daddy was away on business. Alice knew that Daddy didn't always leave them enough money. But most of all, Alice knew that Dean would take care of her - no matter what.

Dean pressed a kiss into the blonde mop of hair that curled it's way below Alice's ears and squeezed the child tight.

"I'm sorry, Little One. I'll pick up some food tomorrow." Dean promised her. Sam was listening, he knew Dean was going to have to steal some food, he knew it was wrong, but what other choice did they have? They'd starve otherwise.

Alice didn't understand that Dean had to do bad things to take care of her, somehow, she'd often look upon this memory as a fond one, Dean was there, keeping her safe, warm in his embrace, Alice knew nothing would hurt her.

That was the first time. Over the years, Dean often referred to Alice as 'Little One'. The nickname held a status of meaningfulness and was always used endearingly.

"How you doing, Little One?" Dean would ask as he picks Alice up from kindergarten.

"You'll be fine, Little One, I'll see you later, okay?" Dean squeezed Alice's shoulder as she goes off to her first day ever of school, dressed in an outfit Sam had cobbled together from a local Good Will. She had an old backpack on, with her school supplies in and a pocket knife hidden in the front pouch.

Sam picked up on it quite quickly and soon Alice had two brothers calling her Little One. As a child she found it cute, but as she got older, it became immature and annoying, a reminder that she was never going to be a grown up in the eyes of her brothers.

"Good luck, Little One!" Dean called from the front seat of the Impala as she started high school. Sam slid from the passenger seat and started walking with Alice to the front desk.

"Don't call me that, I'm not a kid anymore!" Ah, the smell of teenage rebellion, Dean snuffled a laugh and Sam just raised his eyebrows. It lasted for maybe a month at the most. Alice would call her brothers out when they used the nickname, tell them she could take care of herself, she was mature now.

She started to miss it. So one day, when it accidentally slipped from Sam's mouth, Alice didn't correct him. She just hugged him and held onto the last few strands of childhood as the dangerous world had started to catch up on her.

She was fourteen when she started hunting. It was a quick salt and burn, John had labelled it as simple and let Alice take care of the whole thing. He wasn't even in town when the whole thing went down. Dean had taken Sam up to Vegas for his eighteenth birthday and didn't know that Alice was going to be hunting. Let's just say when he returned, Dean flipped out. A creative string of curse words were all directed at their father and if Sam hadn't stepped in, Alice wasn't convinced that John wouldn't have ended up in a hospital bed beside her.

That's because Alice did end up in the hospital. The hunt wasn't just a salt and burn. It was much more complicated than that.

The vengeful ghost of a murdered mother who longed for her own dead children was attacking anyone under the age of sixteen. With the name and address of the woman's grave, Alice dug it up and burned the corpse. Her hands were filthy, mud caked under her fingernails and she dragged the shovel behind her as she traipsed up through the grounds of the old haunted mansion.

Turns out there wasn't a ghost, the EMF readings must've been misread and who knows how draughty the old house might've been. Alice pushes her way in through the back door and was met by the true killer. The old caretaker.

He was crippled and unsuspecting, and well, alive.

He was still being paid for the maintenance of the house but after a decade of solitude, he began killing anyone who came within half a mile of the crumbling country manor.

The victims ages were all a coincidence. The caretaker had a small axe and a particularly strong right arm. He swung it at Alice, she dived for cover, but as she rolled to safety, the caretaker struck again, this time meeting his target.

The axe lodged itself in Alice's shoulder, she screamed and dropped to the floor as blood ripped its way through her wounded skin. The man, however, was now weaponless.

The dusty house seemed alive to Alice. The creaky doors whispered as wind howled through broken windows. Adrenaline pumped through her body, dulling the worse of the pain, giving her the faintest relief to stand up and defend herself.

The caretaker reached to pull the axe out, but Alice ducked and landed a punch on the old mans stomach. He grunted and Alice's elbow flicked up and caught him straight on the jaw. Falling backwards, he tried to grab onto something, but the old furniture just collapsed underneath him.

Alice didn't know what to do. Everything she had been taught was to kill the supernatural, save the people. Right now she was being attacked by one of the people she was supposed to be saving.

The man was back on his feet now, growling and baring his yellowed teeth like an animal. Alice furrowed her eyebrows, she was loosing at lot of blood she could barely stand, her legs were shaking.

Alice did the only thing she would. On stumbling feet: she ran.

The man tried to follow, but even injured, Alice was faster than him. She reached the end of the drive way and didn't look back. The adrenaline boost begun to wear off as Alice ran into a kindly dog walker. She didn't see the woman's face, Alice clutched her wound and let the pain submerge her. She must've looked like something out of a horror film, axe lodged in her shoulder, crimson dripping from between her fingers and her blonde hair matted with sweat and mud, sticking to the blood spatters across her neck and face.

Darkness took over.

"Hey Little One," Sam was at the hospital when Alice awoke. Dean walked in shortly holding a cup of hospital coffee. John turned up once. Dean nearly killed him, and he didn't show his face again.

By the time Alice was discharged, the wound in her shoulder was still wrapped and bound, the nerves had begun to repair and the tissue was slowly knitting itself together.

"Look, Little One! They're gonna let you keep the axe!" Dean found it hilarious, walking out of the hospital with the strangely clean and sterilised axe in hand and, and his other hand was gripping Alice tightly around the waist. She was still unsteady on her feet and leaning onto her big brother was the easiest way to move without pain.

The Winchester family were reunited. John turned up at their motel door, with a case down in Oregon. Alice was dropped off on Bobby's doorstep and the father-son trio were back on the road, albeit the tension remained, only set aside for the greater good.

Bobby welcomed the girl, he chuckled as she walked in holding a duffle bag in one hand and an axe in the other. He let her tell her story: the case, the old man, how she fought him off.

Alice felt at home with Bobby, she healed quickly and relaxed. A few months passed. Dean called almost every night, Sam sent her regular emails and often asked for her help researching a case. Not once did she hear her dad's voice.

Her stay seemed to feel more permanent when Bobby told Alice to get a job. He had a friend in the pub that offered her a small waitressing job on the weekends. It got Alice out of the house and she learned to enjoy the afternoons she spent serving alcohol to the locals and delivering plates of 'pub grub' to the regulars.

When Sam found out, he didn't believe her at first; who knew his little sister would be the first of the siblings to get a proper job. Once he learned it was true, he was incredibly proud of his baby sister.

John came back with the boys for a weekend. He told Alice she was a liability and she was much safer here, with Bobby. Dean protested, Sam argued, but Alice did not complain once. She was happy with Bobby. He was more of a father figure than John had ever been.

Dean stormed out that night, angry tears in his eyes and a bottle of beer in the other. Alice found him sat on the bonnet of an old ford anglia. He was leaning against the windscreen, the bottle half empty and a look of again on his face.

"You can't stay here. When am I going to see you?" Dean spoke as Alice approached cautiously. "I can't lose you too, Little One."

"You aren't going to lose me, Deano." Alice hopped up beside him. "You can always come and visit."

"Why are you not upset?" Dean looked at her accusingly.

"I'm happy here, Dean. I love you and Sam and I miss you like mad! But here with Bobby, it's home now." Taking her brothers hand, she squeezed it gently. "I can go to school here, I have a job, I can make some friends- I can be normal Dean!"

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life chasing after monsters and putting my life on the line every day. You and Sam, that's what you are good at. You're the best hunters I know, but that's just not me. I want to go to college, I want find a guy and have kids. I just want to be normal."

"I get that Kiddo, I understand." Dean pulled Alice into his side, hugging her as the sun set behind them. It was a picturesque sight. Dried tears mixed with hopes and dreams; framed with a sunset and a touch of love.

"I'm gonna' miss you."

"Yeah, me too, Little One."

That's how it ended. Alice enrolled at the local high school, she made friends, she had her first boyfriend. Sam and Dean visited a lot, John barely showed face and Alice was grateful she didn't have to see him. She had sleepovers and she studied and she stressed enough to drive Bobby insane.

Bobby let her go to her first party. He warned her about sex and drugs and boys. Bobby taught her to drive. Bobby pitched a tent for Alice and her friends to have a sleepover in. He bought Alice her monthly necessities and introduced her to his friends as 'his girl'. Although it was never made official, Alice became Bobby's daughter.

Bobby drove her to prom in a classic Renault Cavarelle Cabriotlet. He threatened her boyfriend. Bobby was the one to hold her when she was dumped over text, letting her cry on his shoulder and promising to thump the lad one, next time he saw the bastard.

Bobby was sat between Sam and Dean at Alice's graduation. He cheered the loudest. Sam whooped and Dean clapped like crazy.

When they got home, cap and gown in hand, Alice opened a letter. A short paragraph from her college of choice. An acceptance letter. Sam clapped her on the back and Dean didn't let her go for five minutes.

Bobby cried.

When Alice left for college, Bobby cried. When Alice came home with a new boyfriend called Alfie, who stayed for dinner, Bobby smiled. His girl was getting the normal life she wanted.

Admittedly, Bobby still had her man the phones, and more than once had a fellow hunter turned up at Singer's Salvage Yard and Alice had patched up the bleeding warriors. She kept a stack of lore books hidden under her bed in her dormitory and she still carried a pocket knife in her bag everywhere she went.

She'd never lose the paranoia, the constant looking over her shoulder. She knew it's what would keep her alive in this dark world.

Alice graduated college with a degree in Journalism and English Literature. Sam was so proud. Bobby cried. Dean threw her a party and got her very drunk. John, god knows where John was. He lost the right to be her father a long time ago.

Alice was nearly pulled into the supernatural world a few weeks after she left college. She had a job interview as a newspaper columnist the next morning, but Dean showed up unannounced with a bullet in his shoulder and a vampire on his tail. Killing the vampire sparked something inside Alice. The urge to hunt had crept up on her. She hated it.

"Go home, Little One." Dean encouraged her, when Alice offered to travel with him for a while. "This isn't your world anymore. You deserve more than this."

Alice left and she lived. She was still with the boy she met in college. They bought an apartment together. They bought a puppy; a black labrador named Pudge. He was adorable. Bobby loved him.

Alice and Alfie lived near Suix Falls in the nearby city. Alice was a journalist and Alfie was a history teacher at a local high school.

Alfie, being the gentleman he was, asked Sam, Dean and Bobby for permission to marry Alice. They all said yes, and so did Alice. Bobby claimed to be the happiest man in the world.

They got married, they decided to grow old together back in Suix Falls. Bobby became a grandfather to a little boy named Harry. Alice was living the white picket fence life. She loved it.

She was living happily ever after.

That was until Harry turned 6 months old and poor Alice found Alfie burning on the roof of the nursery. His eyes blank and his face contorted with pain.

Submerged in grief and anger, Alice reached a new low in her life.

But Alice wasn't John. She did things differently. Harry and Alice moved to the bunker, they lived under the protection of Sam and Dean. Alice got her revenge. Alice lived with her grief.

Alice was not like John.

Alice was good.


End file.
